The “Jeddah Charter for Media Responsibility” was issued today as a culmination of the work of the International Forum “The Media and its Role in Fueling Hatred and Violence: The Dangers of Misinformation and Bias,” which concluded with a number of recommendations and for which the Muslim World League brought together members of the Union of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation Countries (UNA). , major international agencies, and the most prominent religious and diplomatic leaders in the world.
The charter included 13 articles adopted by the leaders and institutions represented in the forum, and 8 recommendations were issued at the end of the work of the international forum, which included attendees from all over the world, especially heads and directors of Arab, Islamic and international news agencies. With the participation of reporters from the Gaza Strip who struggle to convey the facts and inform public opinion of what is happening on the ground.
The charter stated in its preamble that there is a need to express belief in the duty to advance the media system, to enhance the honor of belonging to the profession, to emphasize the charters issued by international organizations and professional institutions, and to ensure respect for freedom of opinion and expression in the context of its civilizational legitimacy that supports world peace and the harmony of its national societies.
The Charter also drew attention to the importance of guaranteeing the right of public opinion to know the truth, and to access information through its documents presented with impartiality and impartiality, and not with its improvised and misleading theses that distort the transparency of its information and distort its documents. Stressing the importance of being guided by the experiences accumulated by media experiences in reaching an enlightened, civilized societal role.
The Charter emphasized that the needs of the times require the formulation of an international coalition to thwart media misinformation and improve the performance and quality of media work in accordance with standards and controls that represent the ethics of media discourse with its pillars and duties. Therefore, the participants in the forum call on all media professionals around the world to adhere to those ethics that media values agree on and do not differ, as a professional commitment that everyone who feels media responsibility believes in, far from any other goals that would deviate the media path from its noble message, and they affirm in In this regard, we must adhere to the following:
1- Belief in human dignity, commitment to common moral ideals, and the preservation and respect of human rights, regardless of their religious, national, ethnic or other identity, whose existence and right to choose their legitimate orientations must be respected, and refraining from broadcasting and publishing anything that would prejudice the rights of others or violate their privacy.
2- Combating negative phenomena and wrong practices, and confronting calls to spread vice and moral decadence, and everything that harms societies, or contradicts common sense and universal human values.
3- Respect the religious and national symbols of nations and peoples, and insist that insulting religious beliefs and sanctities does not fall within freedom of expression, but rather is an immoral exploitation of this noble value, and only results in further provocation of feelings, creation of hostilities, and inflaming tensions.
4- Establishing a culture of conscious difference, respecting cultural and social diversity, preserving the peace of societies and the harmony of their components, consolidating their coexistence, developing their renaissance, and taking into account scientific, objective and ethical standards in criticism and dialogue.
5- Considering Islamophobia and other hateful and exclusionary ideas as an example of abhorrent racism that demonizes others and excludes them due to their narrowness of diversity, their inability to interact with them, or their misunderstanding of their isolation and arrogance, in addition to the rootedness of hatred in some souls, which indicates the level of their human and moral isolation.
6- Combating calls for violence, hatred, and racial discrimination, refraining from publishing materials that fuel or incite extremism and terrorism, and working to combat everything that disturbs the security of nations and societies, or sows discord and war.
7- Blocking content related to violence and hatred, being completely cautious against unidirectional and biased controls, being careful not to publish media materials that are offensive or insulting to individuals and groups, condemning all forms of contempt and contempt, and using polite and sophisticated language that preserves dignity, reveals the truth, guarantees coexistence, and respects everyone.
8- Deal sensitively and consciously with catastrophic and tragic events, use visual and linguistic materials professionally, and be careful not to offend the victims or those affected and afflicted by conveying hurtful or shocking details and images.
9- Practicing media work freely and independently, not subject to pressure or influence in all its forms and manifestations, and avoiding exploiting influence or authority to serve personal interests and achieve personal gains.
10- Commitment to personal responsibility, adhering to moral and social values, not using methods of deception and blackmail to reach the news and verify its authenticity, and being wise in covering it, in a way that contributes to enlightening public opinion and directing it with balance and moderation, avoiding exaggeration and exaggeration methods, and avoiding provocation and incitement to hatred. And violence.
11- Sensing the honor of the profession based on objectivity and impartiality in receiving and presenting news, and considering them as the ideal expression for stating the truth that should reach the public, without exclusion, bias or misleading.
12- Commitment to legitimate means of obtaining information, and avoiding unethical means that violate the rights of others or invade their privacy.
13- Relying on trustworthy and credible authorities to transmit news and reports, taking into account copyright when quoting them, investigating the truth and accuracy of the media materials and reports presented or published, and staying away from fabrication, piracy, forgery, distortion, and spreading misleading news or rumours.
The forum also called for a number of recommendations, which are:
1- Creating a unified international law that regulates the ethics of media work, and approves the regulations that qualify for conscious media practice.
2- Creating national and international laws that deter all forms of hatred, including criminalizing media institutions and individuals involved in their crimes, and drawing up official lists of their names to isolate them from the honest media system, alerting them to their dangers to the peace of our world and the harmony of its national societies.
3- Announcing the (Islamic News Agency Award for Media Professionalism), granted by the agency to governmental and non-governmental bodies and institutions and individuals committed to media values.
4- Providing protection for media correspondents, criminalizing assault on them, or restricting their access to events and reporting them freely.
5- National and international support for everything that would advance the media message, and the contribution of its content to enhancing awareness of its various concepts and implications.
6- Enhancing the media process to become a soft force to serve humanitarian issues, support oppressed peoples, resolve conflicts, and strengthen the civilizational alliance between nations and peoples in the face of concepts of hatred and theories of the inevitability of conflict and civilizational clash.
7- Creating effective national and international observatories that detect and sense warnings of hatred and work to avoid its dangers.
8- Calling for the adoption of the (Jeddah Charter for Media Responsibility) by international media institutions, to be a reference source and legal document in knowing the ethics of media work, controlling its practice, and stating its regulations.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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